Column: La Grange woman creates site to rival Facebook, Twitter

Monday

Be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Crusty Town, Vine, Audioboo, Squishville, Bebo, Reddit, Flicker, Foursquare, Henhouse or Linkedin, people nowadays mainly communicate through millions of miles of wire and glass.

According to the Brookings Institute, by the time a child born in 2014 reaches the age of 40, he or she will have carried on more online conversations than those of the face-to-face variety. While some experts argue that having to log on to communicate creates a disconnect, others see it as a means for socially awkward people to interact with their peers.

By contrast, the La Grange entrepreneur who has started her own social networking site is anything but socially awkward.

According to her multi-page profile on the North Carolina Department of Correction website, the CEO-in-waiting has made friends at every jail, prison and halfway house between Asheville and Maury. After a varied career -- including stints as Willie Nelson’s gardener, Chris Brown’s anger counselor and Lady Gaga’s ga wrangler -- Paulette Burroughs spent the better part of the last decade as a concierge at the Kinston Daily Free Press.

“I enjoyed my time at The Free Press,” Burroughs said. “If anybody ever had trouble getting their paper delivered, I’d just read it to them over the phone.”

After Burroughs retired from The Free Press last year, she spent several months on the motivational speaking circuit. According to a press release, her one-woman show “The Recliner Monologues” took her around the country.

“That was a typo,” Burroughs said. “That was supposed to say ‘county’.”

After charging a few dozen civic organizations $15 a head to watch her take a nap in a La-Z-Boy ran its course, Burroughs turned her attentions to social media.

“I’ve done Facebook a bit and Twitter maybe once, but neither of them featured the type of content I was interested in,” Burroughs said. “I decided to take a few programming classes and start my own social media platform.”

Burrough’s site -- www.Schoinkel.com -- went live on March 31.

“I cherry-picked the facets of Facebook and Twitter that I liked the most and added in my own special seasoning; at least enough to keep the copyright lawyers out of my grill,” Burroughs said.

Key features of the site include “Paulette’s Southern Cooking Tips,” “Rush Limbaugh’s Narcotic Of The Day” and “Rachel Maddow’s Crew Cut Corner.” The already controversial “Steppin’ Out” section provides a platform for frustrated spouses and better-halves to post photos of their philandering partners.

“Some people are upset that we’ll be posting photos of people who are running around a little,” Burroughs said. “The way I see it, the Steppin’ Out feature will scare people straight. I didn’t have flings with three governors, a speaker of the house and one vice president and not learn a thing or two.”

Of her political conquests, Burroughs said Al Gore and Newt Gingrich were the most bizarre.

“Newt just wanted to listen to old Paul Lynde albums, but Gore had a slaw fetish,” Burroughs said. “Whenever we’d sneak off to the beach for a few hours, he insisted I use hush-puppy mix for sunscreen.”

If all goes well with www.Schoinkel.com, Paulette has another idea up her sleeve.

“Another site I’m working on is called Spitter, which will be similar to Twitter; however, it’ll be focused around the chewing tobacco/snuff/dipping lifestyle,” Burroughs said. “Ashton Kutcher made trucker hats hip a few years ago, and I think we’re one Mila Kunis away from chewing tobacco becoming the Tic-Tacs of the next decade.”

Jon Dawson’s humor columns run every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase Jon’s new book “Counterfeit Sauerkraut & The Weekend Teeth” at The Free Press office or jondawson.com.

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